


Duel in the Snow

by tran_quill



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M, Ramsay is his own warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 04:15:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9802220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tran_quill/pseuds/tran_quill
Summary: 'Now I'm coming to kill you and die, and I remember my name."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> More book than show, with a glimpse of Iwan Rheon.
> 
> After his escape, Theon is a captive again in Stannis camp with his sister Asha, before the battle against the Boltons and their allies. He doesn't mind dying, and nobody will regret him anyway. Nobody ?
> 
> Inspired by my favorite thramsay pair, and the classic western Duel in the Sun.
> 
> (My first dabble in fanfiction, and English is not my first language)

Snow muffled every sound, immaculate. His garron went through it earnestly though the poor beast was as thin and malnourished as his rider. 

First sound he heard was crows cawing loudly, and he knew he was near. Then a dark form appeared ahead. A man face down in the white, spiked with arrows and a dark spot of blood congealing near his neck. Maybe he was trying to flee. When the garron reached the crest, he saw the man had hundreds of unfortunate brothers feeding carrion crows. No wailing could be heard.

The victors had tended to their wounded, killed those foes who had no chance to survive, and had gone away with their captives. The high number of flayed men and blue towers on their surcoats told of King Stannis victory. 

The man rode through the corpses, disrupting the feast. Till he found a great chestnut stallion, entrails spilled by a spear. He heard a rasp breathing, but it was only a dog. The man dismounted and ended its suffering with his dirk, almost tenderly. 

Then he circled, fumbling amongst the dead. He bent to scoop a pink cloak, covered with snow. Rich velvet ornate with drops of blood, and soiled with blood too. Deeper under snow he found pieces of armor, and a helmet resembling the face of a man screaming in anguish. He got back in the saddle and rode away from the battle, following a track in the snow. 

*****

When they had awakened him the day before the battle, Theon asked himself: is being burned alive such a terrible end ? Then he smiled, because he could. 'Twas an awful sight, to be true, his mouth was a black hole punctured with ruined teeth.

The King's men were just shadows in the first light of dawn. One of them tucked roughly on his chain. "Get up, Turncloak! Time to pay for your crimes." The man's voice was harsh, but something was wrong. Theon was to be burned as an offering to R'hllor before the battle, but it was clearly a northern voice. Men with shaggy beards, bundled in furs, emerged in the grey light. Three men from the northern clans, still loyal to the Stark memory. They lifted him effortlessly and took him outside the camp, to a remote place. 

So it will be the sword, thought Theon. The threat of the cold steel coming down on his neck, who haunted his youth, was almost soothing to him now. For a man who felt the kiss of the flaying knife, it was mercy. 

One of them pushed him to the ground, head on a frozen stump, another put a foot on his back. There will be no words for the Turncloak, but he knew them by heart. He heard the faint rustling of steel on leather.

*****

Then the hiss of an axe through the air, a second one, then a thump, and Theon knew it was Asha.

The Northman fell upon him and bathed him in his blood. "Hurry up, little brother, King Stannis won't be happy to wake up and find I disobeyed his orders and freed his offering to the Red God. Don't be afraid, he won't burn me, he needs my men to follow me in battle.'

Asha's Ironmen were already hiding the Northmen corpses under heaps of snow.  
She seized Theon's thin arm and helped him up and ahorse.  
"No!"  
Asha looked at the old gaunt wretched excuse of a man that had been her brother. What she saw in his eyes must have startled her, because for the one time she stopped and stared mutely. 

"Thank you for what you've done sister, but I have no desire to live. I'm broken, hated and despised by King's men, Northmen and Ironborn alike, and for good reasons. Let me be free for the first time since I was a boy, Let me kill and die.

\- You won't ride into battle for sure, Theon...  
\- No Asha. I know the foe will ride out of Winterfell, I know the King has set a trap for them. And I know who will lead the sally. I will hide and bid my time. Then I'll make sure _he_ won't hurt anybody anymore."

His voice was trembling, but when he seized the bow and quiver from one of the dead men and wheeled his garron away, his poor hands were firm.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He still couldn't bear to look at that face again, to feel that dull grey eyes on him.

"Lord Ramsay, m'lord, I'm back for you, I bring a horse, You know I would come back!"  
The tracks went up a slope between black rocks and naked trees, to a snowy crest. Silence was the only answer.

The rider bound his scrawny horse to a tree and walked a few yards to a little clearing. To a man looking from the crest, to a good hunter, his black silhouette was an easy mark.

Theon looked up, a few snow flakes melting on his face. Something moved on the crest, like a beast. Then the beast got up on its feet and became a man, flailing his arms childishly as if to challenge him to fling snowballs at him. Then he began to run down the slope, half limping, half sliding, oh so quickly. Maybe his leg has been hurt when the stallion fell, but it must have been the foe's blood on his cloak.

When the man tumbled into the clearing, Theon went down on one knee to grab the bow, trembling, and nock, draw, loose. Pain seared his mangled hands like the knife was back at them, and he crawled and fell behind a rock.

He heard a low growl, then nothing.

*****

He peeked from behind the boulder. The dark form hadn't moved for a long time. Lord Ramsay was laying on his back, his longbow still slung under him, his bloody knives still in his belt. Holding the arrow to his breast. It's been so easy to take him down.

He still couldn't bear to look at that face again, to feel that dull grey eyes on him, even in death. 

So he stayed there crouching, rocking back and forth to the hated rhyme that had saved him from going insane. On the outside he was wearing woolen clothes, but inside he still had to shed his stinking rags. And he knew his wretched skin will tear up with them, his bones will dissolve and his mind will go. Behind his Reek's face there was nothing left but a void. There was no Theon Turncloak, he was dead a long time ago. 

Tears fell down his gaunt cheeks, freezing forthwith. Reek laid down in the snow feeling the cold of death. There was but one man who could touch Reek without retching, who sometimes held the disgusting bag of bones and meat against him and kept it warm. But master was dead now.

*****

There was a soft hiss and an arrow hit the tree above him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm slooow


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now my scent is all wrong.  
> I did something terrible, something unthinkable, there will be no mercy.

_He's coming, he's coming, please, oh please no._  
_Maybe if I can bury myself in the snow, in the ground, in the darkest corner of my mind._  
_Maybe he will pass me by._  
_Or I can just roll into a ball and wait for the kick in the teeth._  


_Or a soft pat on the hair from a gloved hand._  
_It was all the same, it was some kind of ... love ?_  
_Someone wanted me._  
_If only I could... remember my name ?_

_But now my scent is all wrong._  
_I did something terrible, something unthinkable, there will be no mercy.  
_

Back at the Dreadfort, the cruel, mocking voice was filling his head.  
'So you want to be a hunter, Reek ?" Lord Ramsay was holding him close, he could feel him pushing against his backside, he was hard, he always was when he was tormenting him. He forced Reek's freshly flayed fingers to draw on the bow and it hurt, it hurt so much. "No, please m'lord, I'm not a hunter, I'm not this kind of dog, I don't need so many fingers... Please, please, m'lord cut it down!" 

_Yet there was a boy in Winterfell, always smiling, he was a good archer, even better than Robb._

_Robb is dead and I should have died with him._

Something teared horribly inside him. Like a curtain made from his own flayed skin, revealing the hated Turncloak, with his ghosts of treason and murder. How it hurts to be Theon again.

******

I can't possibly shoot another arrow, my hands are bleeding.  
"You can always take more", the Monster used to say back at the Dreadfort, each time he begged for mercy.

I learned my lesson well, my Lord.

Now I'm coming to kill you and die, and I remember my name.

Theon pushed himself up on his mangled feet again, bow in hand, leaning on the big rock.

As soon as he got up, a burning pain teared his side, bringing him to his knees again.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm coming to get you!" 

Ramsay's growl was thick with ravenous joy as he trailed from one thin tree to another. His padded jerkin, all black leather, had only been scratched by the arrow. 

"No need for my dogs, I know your stench well enough, bitch!"  
There will be many more hunts, but nothing will sate him like mauling the hated squid to shreds.

"Traitor, thankless scum. You stole my wive." His tone was turning into an uncontrollable, heinous shrill. "I've been merciful to you, I let you sleep with the girls, I even let you in my bedchamber.  
Liar! It seems I left you too many fingers...  
If I have to drag you from your hole I'll flay you alive!  
...  
\- Come to me and I'll give you a quick death, Reek, I'll slit your throat before I take your skin off."

Ramsay stole to a thicket aside the rock and kept silent for a time, holding his bow.  
He waited for his prey to come groveling in the snow.  
He waited.  
Ramsay had always preferred to hound the game than to watch and wait. His patience quickly dwindled.

He glanced quickly, and spied a pool of blood and two boots, sole up.

"Reek!" Ramsay tried to hide the crack in his voice.

He sneaked around the rock.  
And found Reek on his knees, trembling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 5th and final chapter will be longer!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You made a dog out of me my Lord, you should have kept me at your feet."

On his knees, trembling from the effort, Theon was ready to shoot.

Ramsay was too close to be missed. The arrow took him near the collarbone. He grunted in pain and retreated behind the rock, leaving a bloody track, shuffling along to find shelter in the brush.

*****

Out of sight, Ramsay slumped in the snow, blood seeping around the arrow at the base of his neck.  
"I can't shoot no more, come to me my Reek."

He unsheathed his dirk and hid it in his sleeve.

*****

The ruined man put his boots back. The pain in his fingers stubs was so unbearable he couldn't feel the arrow stuck sideways in his thigh. 

Lord Ramsay's voice was laced with anguish, but his wormy lips still dribbled with the sweet, poisonous wine of lies.  
_He's playing with me._  
Reek recalled:  
"If you always obey and never run away from me again, I won't hurt you any more, my Reek" _Yet when your father stole me from you, you took another finger. How I shrieked, another part of me gone. As if I had the choice._  
"I will protect you, I will keep you, you'll be mine only, my sweet Reek" _You took everything from me my Lord, my skin, my smile, my manhood, even my name. The price I paid to forget Theon Greyjoy.  
Then you grow tired of your pet, and left me to roam Winterfell like a ghost, with the Old Gods in the trees whispering to me, bringing back terrible memories. _

_You made a dog out of me my Lord, you should have kept me at your feet._  
He laughed.

"I don't believe your false promises no more, my Lord."

*****

Reek's eyes followed the blood track in the snow. It stopped only a few yards away. Snow was stained by a black shadow, sprawled with the bow fallen by his side.

He tried to walk forth but his wounded leg went out under him.

_I come crawling to you, as you taught me, my Lord. Please live a little longer, your dog is coming to tear up your throat._

A faint, raspy wail stopped him in his trail. Lord Ramsay was calling to him.  
"I'm dying my Reek, hurry up..."

Reek resumed his crawling, his own blood dripping and mingling with the other man's.

Lord Ramsay laid still, his breast heaving raggedly. His dirk was stuck in the snow, out of reach from his gloved hand. _He's got another one in his belt. The little one._ Reek retched at the mere idea of touching that thing.

He came closer. Ramsay's eyes were wide open, staring. Grey pools of dirty ice, that Reek had learned to decipher in the faint hope of soothing his master, of lessening his pains. They were always glinting with rage, then lust, then scorn, then endearment, then cruelty, he recalled. But never mercy, the man had none in him. 

His lord was still alive. Blood was pulsing slowly from his neck.

"Wait for me my Lord, I'm your Reek."

Reek felt so feeble now, a thin shroud of skin, almost drained of blood. He fell in the snow, face down. Tried to extend a hand to touch Him.

Something grabbed his hand, another hand, gloved in soft leather. It pulled clumsily at Reek's glove, pinching a hollow finger, baring the mangled hand. Engulfing it, pawing the ugly stubs.

Lord Ramsay loved to touch his Reek's hideous and beautiful wounds, one by one. Loved to make him retell all the ghastly details of how and why he earned each of his grisly punishments. And Reek would oblige, lying down on his back in the warm feathered bed, soiling it with its stink, Lord Ramsay didn't seem to mind that. He would breath heavily, pleasuring himself. It always took a very long time because Reek had many and more wounds, but winter nights were long. Finally, his master would come into the hollow place between Reek's legs.  
It didn't hurt, at least bodily. Reek would weep silently, when he had been allowed enough water to spare some tears.  
By then the moon had run its course behind the dented crenelation of the Dreadfort and they fell asleep.

*****

Holding his Lords hand, Reek nested against his body, his own life leaving him softly, peacefully. Lord Ramsay's breath was a hard rasp now, as he was shuddering violently, choking on his own blood. He let his head down on his Reek's neck, inhaling his scent deeply.  
They held each other, breathless like two lovers after the throes of passion.

Flakes were falling heavily now. Soon all was left of the two of them was a small knoll of snow.


End file.
